


Sweeter than syrup

by smoth



Category: Hat Films - Fandom, The Yogscast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Baking, Gen, Kim is comedy relief, Listen - I love food aus, Multi, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 06:38:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11572458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoth/pseuds/smoth
Summary: A hell of a project, for my friend, Mitch, and a lot of others. All good people and creators!I love food in fic. I need more of it all of the time.





	Sweeter than syrup

**Author's Note:**

  * For [threeplusfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/threeplusfire/gifts), [ghostofgatsby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostofgatsby/gifts), [VexedBeverage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VexedBeverage/gifts).



Over many years of working, from part-time in a family cafe at fourteen to 24/7 employment in his own business at twenty-five, Trott had learned many things; piping techniques for his cakes, timing for pastries, the perfect chocolate recipes, and to never grow attached to customers. There was never a point to crush over someone who you may only see for a five minute period, if that, and it would only end up using precious time daydreaming about attractive strangers, time which could be better used by baking, or serving more customers. Yet, for some God-forsaken reason, Trott was caught off-guard, and managed to completely forget this rule. 

 

Unlike most unrequited love affairs that he had read about in books and watched in movies, it all started with the purchase of two éclairs; one a raspberry and cream, and the other a classic chocolate, and well-fitting suits that probably cost more than what Trott makes in a month, blue eyes - one pair pale pastel, and the other deep cyan, like they're taken straight from the ocean - and voices that even in their slow and comfortable conversation to each other reminds Trott of the molten chocolate used to drizzle the cakes that he's currently picking out for them. Somehow,  this all comes together to create a beautiful whole, and Trott really doesn’t like where these thoughts are going. The last thing he needs on his mind are intrusive thoughts of leaning over his counter to kiss two men - probably with wives or girlfriends, even boyfriends (heck, they're probably brothers, with Trott's luck) - senseless. Or take them by the napes and make them kiss each other so Trott can smile and watch.

 

The once-simple manoeuvre of placing a chocolate éclair into a little stylish black box suddenly becomes the most difficult challenge he's ever faced - almost as if he hasn’t successfully done it dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of times before. By some miracle, he manages, puts the crisp ten pound note in his coin-flooded till, and mentally congratulates himself for acting like a normal functioning person for six minutes in a row (those minutes felt like hours, and Trott felt as if he was up to his knees in tar, but he snapped out of it later when the two strangers left the bakery, leaving him to slowly sink further into his puddle of metaphorical tar). 

 

"Thank you, so much. Time to see what all the hype was about, huh?" The taller of the two says to the other, who nods happily, a thin-lipped smile brightening his entire face. Trott wishes it was directed at him, rather than the taller man, who looked to pay the gentle smile no mind.

 

"Yeah, the hype," echoed the black haired man, before flashing a toothy smile to Trott, who could feel himself sinking further still into the tar beneath him, behind the counter. "All over the office."

 

"The hype, sorry?" Trott barely managed to enquire, and thought to ask if they needed a bag.  

 

The auburn haired man smiled brightly, the skin around his cyan eyes crinkling, and  _ God fucking damn _ if Trott wasn't disobeying his golden rule about crushes at work, he sure was by now, in the spotlight with two gorgeous strangers beaming at him. 

 

"A friend at work always buys your desserts, she never shuts up about how good they are." His voice is sharp, somehow comforting, and warm. The shorter man with the red tie bounces on his heels as Trott fishes a fifty pence out of his till for their change. 

 

"So much so that she practically hisses when we ask to taste them. Even though she buys huge boxes at a time-"

 

"Blonde hair, tall? Bit shorter than yourself?" Trott quirks an eyebrow. The business woman was a regular at lunch hours, and would buy two of each pastry and cake on the top shelf of the counter. She tipped very generously. "She comes in every other day, at lunch." 

"Yeah, that's her." The shorter chirps, stepping to the side to let the taller man dig out his wallet from his pocket. 

 

Trott wouldn't be surprised if the wallet cost more than a month's gas bills in his apartment. It was crisp and Trott caught glimpse of a good few cards slotted into the pockets. The man fished out a five pound note, and folded it over his index finger, dropping the wallet back into his pocket before holding out his hand for the pile of coins Trott was handing over. 

 

Trott checked over the change for the third time before dropping it into the man's hand, and the swift way that he poked the bank note into the tip jar didn't go unnoticed. Trott smiled. 

 

"Thank you, Jesus, you haven't even tasted them yet!" He laughed somewhat nervously as they picked up their little boxes. 

 

"First impressions go a long way," the taller flashed a wide, bright smile again, "And hey- I'm not promising anything, but you might have two more regular customers on your list." 

 

Trott flushed a deep red, untying his apron belt and tying it again out of nervous habit. 

 

The shorter of the two on the other side of the counter looked down at his watch and punched the taller’s arm, enough to make a dull thumping sound. "We'll have to run back to the building, mate, come on." And took a step backwards, smiling and waving to Trott. "I hope your pastries are as nice as you are!" He rushed, running out of the door, cradling his boxed éclair. 

 

The taller slowly picked up his own, laughing to himself. He leaned down for a moment, to be a little closer to Trott. "I set his watch to be ten minutes fast." He smirked, and looked down at Trott's apron. "What can I call you? I can't see any name tag." 

 

"Trott Trott" The baker mentally slaps himself for the formal introduction. "I'm the only guy working here. My own shop." He smiles. 

 

"Trott." He said it back, smiling softly. "Like the Olympian, Laura Trott?" 

 

"Afraid I'm more of a chef than an athlete." Trott wipes his hands on his apron, and closes the till. He winces at the sound of coins rattling. 

 

"You're prettier, though, than her, I mean. Or any Olympian, to my knowledge." The taller turns around, to smile one more time, and waves to Trott as he pushes open the frosted glass door. “I’ll be seeing you around, Trott.” 

 

Trott, for possibly the first time in his career, was glad that there were no customers around. It meant he didn’t have to hide the way he collapsed onto the counter, face in his hands. 

 

* * *

 

The second time that Trott sees them is a few days later, in the same circumstances - they were buying one dessert each, and were on their work break. Trott usually had a memory like a sieve when it came to remembering faces that he'd only seen once, so by now it would make sense for him to have forgotten the men entirely, but as soon as the two walk in, the memory is as crisp as it could ever be, and Trott  _ definitely _ remembers them. 

 

The baker wasn't surprised that they were wearing different suits. With their pay, they must be bored of suits, and have at least more than seven separate ones. Trott had two; one from secondary school - their idea of promoting formality at a place of learning was having the students in blazers and ties. The other was his prom suit, which mostly went to waste. He wondered if it would still fit him, if it would affect these two - he couldn't be overly impressive in an old t-shirt and a floury apron. 

 

This time it’s a tartelette au citron for the taller of the businessmen. The little slice is fragrant with lemon, the same creamy pale yellow of the sun outside and it’s a stark contrast against the deep black of the box that Trott delicately places it into. 

 

“Did you like the eclairs, the other day?” Trott asks, after a few minutes of convincing himself to do so. The response he gets is quick, and delivered with two, beaming smiles. Trott feels as if he’s under some spotlight, and it at once fills his gut with the need to run away, and makes him smile even wider back to them. 

 

“ _ Like _ is an understatement, mate.” The taller of the two says swiftly. “They were gorgeous.” 

 

The black haired man looks up from where he’s scanning over the desserts to look at his co-worker in agreement. 

 

Trott punches in the price of the taller’s tartlet into the till quickly, flicking his eyes over to the cake shelves to check the price on the lemon tartlet, a light blush dusted across his cheeks. He so wants to say that the only thing he would consider  _ gorgeous _ were the men standing right in front of him, but his tongue is too heavy in his mouth, and for God’s sake, he had to curb these thoughts. 

 

After the black haired man finally decides what he’d like - a strawberry and cream crepe - Trott again manages to not make a complete fool of himself as he boxes it up and knocks a few pence off of their combined prices (honestly, he deserves a medal for how well he’s doing). After they both leave, Trott spends the rest of his shift daydreaming about people made of stardust who crumble at the touch, and gorgeous boys in expensive clothes. 

 

* * *

 

It is late. Trott locks up the shop, checking over the windows and back doors for the fifteenth time, keys in his hand. His cheery smile reserved for the general public had faded from his face, and it’s raining, really raining; thunder and lightning and torrential downpour. 

 

Today he locks up later into the night than usual. He had spent way too long scrubbing at the surfaces, his thoughts unclear and fuzzy. The man has been reduced to a confused mess. His hair is sticking to his face, his clothes are sodden, and there’s a futile umbrella underneath his arm while he wrestles with the back door lock. Rivulets of water flowing are underneath his jacket and slipping down his back unpleasantly. 

 

He finally gets the door locked, and scrambles to open up his umbrella. The rain thuds against it loudly, and he fumbles around in his pocket for his headphones, his phone. The headphones are tangled, and he left the knots in the cord, too focused on getting some kind of soundtrack for the walk home. He’d cycle, but he felt the risk of riding his bike in rain that teetered on becoming hail a bad idea. 

 

Trott was still thinking about the two customers, from earlier, as he flicked through his music. He settled on the theory that they were just co workers - they looked too  _ different _ to be related, and their casual smiles to each other hinted at something more than friends, or at least something that Trott had never had with any of his friends before. 

 

Not that he had the time to keep half of his friendships going anymore. 

 

Half of them had royally pissed off after finding out that he was running a business and didn't have every day free to talk. It wasn't a bad thing - Trott liked working. His mother had always told him that the best job he'd get is one that he'd enjoy. He had built his patisserie up from the ground in a town that wasn't his, and made good money, and heck if he didn't enjoy the baking itself. 

 

Trott settles on one of his older alt-rock playlists, and wipes some of his sodden hair away from his eyes. He put his phone in his pocket, and starts walking. 

 

_ "You're gonna be up there with the big names one day," his mother would say, pinching the paper casing away from the little cake he had handed her. It was a cupcake; a rose and raspberry frosted little thing. It had tiny, sugar paste roses nestled in the icing. "With a good husband or wife by your side, maybe even passing the business down the generations, hm?"  _

 

Trott tried his hardest to repress the second half of the memory. Even his mother would want this, right now. She would have that pitiful smile on her face as she’d pat him on the back, would pull him close to tell him  _ to go for it _ . Flirt with them. Take some breath mints, comb his hair and give them a free cupcake with his number in the box. 

 

He reaches the block of miserable looking flats with hopeful eyes peeking from underneath his umbrella, and the realisation of just how many floors he has to go up smacks him in the face. He opens the door to the stairs and jumps when it slams behind him. (He tried not to imagine how much someone else would comfort him if he got scared like that, if someone were to be with him.)

 

He hates the emptiness of the building at night. Everything echoed around; his breathing, the wet slapping of his leaking shoes against concrete steps. The walls were all painted black and grey, and there were abandoned bikes locked onto the railings lining the staircases and chewing gum all over the stairs and landings. 

 

His flat is warm when he finally gets inside, and Trott immediately makes a bee-line for the bathroom to put his dripping umbrella into the tub, and hang his coat over the shower curtain rail to drip dry. He’d change over his tumble dryer load in a while to dry it off properly - it was the only good coat he had, at that time. Trott thought back to the tall strangers, with their expensive clothes. Heck, their coats were probably insured. 

 

Would those two even consider him as anything close to a friend? At that moment, he was a popular cake vendor in their office space, and that was it.  

 

Trott slumped out of his wet clothes and let them slap against the tiles on the floor, and stared at himself in the mirror. 

 

They wouldn’t check him out if they saw him walking down the street. He had ridiculous hair, his teeth were too big for his mouth, and his eyes were so dark that people rarely noticed he even had irises. 

 

But those two -  _ those two _ . The blueness in their eyes were two opposite ends of the same spectrum, one pair icy and the other pure cerulean. They were both tall enough to tower over the brunet, and they always just looked  _ good _ . Prim and proper, well-dressed. 

 

What he’d give to mean anything to them. Well, more than a guy that can make some good pastries. 

 

Trott dragged himself into his bedroom to find some dry clothes. 

 

* * *

 

There’s a painful wait of three weeks before he’s surprised again, in amongst one of his busiest days in the month, by one of the two. The school holidays meant that he had all sorts of local students buying. Trott had come across an old friend among the crowds; someone who had grown to become a teacher at a local college. They had shook hands, like real grown-ups do, promised to talk more, another day.  Trott didn’t want to overthink the idea - nobody really kept those kinds of promises anymore. 

 

It was only 11 in the morning and his cheeks are flushed, and he’s trying to go along as fast as he can, alone. On the bright side, business was booming, and his tip jar was nearly full.

 

A familiar face greets him after a sad-looking uni student, and Trott feels his movements stutter. 

 

“Morning, Trott.” The taller of the usual two comes to the front of the massive queue, quite casually, and he’s out of work hours. He’s wearing a bomber jacket and a hoodie, and his hair has been cut, his smile lazy and bright. Trott blinks. 

 

“Good morning,” He says, and smiles a little. “What can I get for you, then, mate?” 

 

Almond cake. The one with the delicate sweet trickle of maple syrup over a coating of thinly-sliced almonds as a topping. The auburn haired man points it out quickly.    
  
“I know it’s a pain to wait for someone to choose after the queue.” He laughs. “And I think I have the whole spread memorised by now, anyway.” 

 

That gets a laugh out of Trott, and he dives straight to the slices. “It does make things a little easier, so thank you. Would you be interested in a discount card? You come here quite a lot. I mean, you and-”

 

“Ross?” 

 

Trott’s slightly taken aback by the casualness of the given name. He blinks slowly, before placing the little slice down on a piece of black tissue paper. 

 

“The guy that always comes with me. His name’s Ross, is all. What were you saying?” The taller says, with his usual slow, attractive drawl. 

 

“-You and  _ Ross _ , even. The card gets you half-off on every second thing you buy.” Trott snaps back into his focused mindset, trying not to stare too much. He slips the little cake into a waiting black box, and closes it up with a press of his thumb. 

 

It’s only once the taller man has left the shop does Trott finally get an answer to who the man is, from a sudden woman's voice:

 

“And that was the CEO of Davidson Corporation, in a hoodie and a pair of Jordans. Who would have thought."

 

Usually Trott detests the times when Kim takes to hiding around the pastry counter and later divulging the identities of the many, many customers of Trott’s.  Her workplace being located so close to Davidson corp. tended to result in an endless stream of gossip that Trott really didn’t care much about, but tries to pay attention to anyway, because he knows that she isn’t trying to bore Trott. Kim truly finds her index of everybody in a ten mile radius of the patisserie endlessly fascinating, and it’s not like Trott can really tell her to leave - she's one of his only proper friends. She helps clean up, too, sometimes, and in return, he lets her lick the spoons. Besides that, there is a kind of beauty in listening to people talk about the subjects they love. Today, in this particular case, is perhaps the single time in the entire year that he’s been grateful for the information.

 

"He's the CEO?" Trott looks at her with a quizzical glint in his eye, and the woman animatedly nods. 

 

"A good one too, just got promoted. The last one was such a tight-ass, you couldn't even imagine." 

 

"That's one good thing about being self employed." Trott grunted. "Do you know much about him?" 

 

Kim gives him a slight sideways glance at the sudden interest he displays, but takes it with a smile, before slipping under the counter separator to stand beside the sink. 

 

"I know that his name's Alan, or something. Alan Smith? Maybe Adam. But he's a right laugh, actually smiles at people. Old one never did that." 

 

Kim was the corporation's receptionist. She was off today, shed from her usual suit and tie and a straight smiling face; polished and clean and representing the massive company to anyone who would walk through the glass and steel doors. Trott liked to think of her like she was; volunteering to help him make truffles with chopsticks in her hair and a comforting smile.

 

"He's got a co-ceo - Hornby. Like the toy trains. He's a good guy, too, buys us all coffees sometimes. Has a bit of a voice to him though. Those two are tight." 

 

Trott nods, emptying his tip jar out onto the counter and preparing to stacking up fifty-pence pieces. "Black hair and super neat facial hair?" 

 

"Yeah, yeah, that's the one. Rob, I think-"

 

"Ross." Trott smiles. 

 

"Maybe. Do you know him?" 

 

"He usually comes in with your boss, Kim. They're usually on the same break times and come here for a cake." 

 

"Well shit. I know what to get them for Christmas, now." Kim swipes a finger in a bowl of buttercream, and brings it up to her lips. "Why do you suddenly care, anyway? You never listen to me talk about people." 

 

Trott almost flushes red at that. Because I have two big fat crushes, he wanted to say, because I've spent half of my days daydreaming about them snogging me. Instead, though, he shrugs. 

 

"They just seem interesting. Very high class and all that." 

 

Kim nods. "Must be nice to have that kind of money." 

 

Kim earns more in a week than Trott does in a good month, but she spends wisely and saves most of it, for useful things. She's in a grey-area where she hardly buys anything luxurious if she can help it, and opts for putting money aside for things like travels or emergencies. She's offered to give Trott money more than twelve times that year. 

 

He couldn't bring himself to say yes, any of the times. The same reason that he had never invited her to his house.

 

"You using this?" Kim holds up the discarded bowl, scrapes of buttercream clinging to the sides. Trott rolls his eyes, and turns back to counting up his earnings. 

 

"Wash it afterwards." 


End file.
